Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Rick and I have been to Block Island many times—we’ve lost count of how many. We have always gone in the summer (July and August and in early September). The beaches were covered with rugosoa roses, festooned with rose hips rather than flowers. We’ve wondered what the island is like when the rugosas are in bloom. This year we found out.

And it’s not just the rugosas with their wonderful fragrance; there were other gorgeous wildflowers we had not seen on Block Island before. Another advantage: weather in the 70’s with low humidity. True we did get rainy days, but we had several days which were glorious.

And although Block Island beaches are never crowded in June, on weekdays we had the beaches practically to ourselves. And all the beaches are open, with none of the beach access problems we encountered in Martha’s Vineyard where the public beaches were disappointing and beach access was severely restricted. The mega mansions took up large stretches of precious beach.

Another advantage of Block Island in June: you can walk into any restaurant without a reservation—-generally not the case in July and August. For a tiny little island, Block Island has quite a few very good restaurants. Our favorites: Atlantic Inn, Manisses, Winfield’s, Eli’s, and newcomer, the Surf Hotel.

Some of these advantages (no crowds, reduced rental prices) apply to September and we certainly enjoyed our September vacation on Block Island, but the flowers in June have decided it for us. From now on we go in June!